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Love song for a Bullfighter in a Coma – Mi corazón añora

I originally composed these themes, as a composition scoring exercise for the Spanish film, by Pedro Almodóvar called “Talk to Her”. It’s a great quirky movie about loving women bullfighters and dancers in a coma. My mentor John Mallia picked out these sections to “compose to”. I wanted to learn how to create and fill a fixed length segment using odd meters. So I created this quick sketch.

The score was orchestrated for a small chamber group, string quartet, contra bass, 3 woodwinds and snare drum. These clips are the Midi Mock up’s of the end result of this exercise.Talk To Her – Scores

I decided to completely re-write this piece for a string quartet.
So it needed a title that has nothing to do with the movie which I decided should be “My Longing Heart” in Spanish. I consulted with my dear friend, Mexican spiritual artist, Blanca Rosa for a proper translation of the term “My Longing Heart”. Primarily since this is about a heart which longs for contact with the Divine, not another individual. We used the translation “Mi corazón añora”.

The quartet is structured with a 20 bar introduction, which builds segments of the theme slowly. You can see a snapshot of this introduction development.
This 7/8 introduction evolves into a 7/8 Jig, building on the elements and themes of the original sketch. I start pushing the momentum forward using the 2,2,3 accents in the viola and cello.
The middle of this work, uses the original 3/4 meter from the sketch. Don DiNicola suggested that we alter the harmonic structure, by moving the beginning of the section up a minor third. The original chord structure used:
Am7 | Dm7 | F C|C | Am7 Dm7|Dm7 | Dm7 | C |
We altered this to be adding two additional bars
Cm7 | Fm7 | Ab Eb|Eb |Gb Db| Db |Am7 Dm7|Dm7 | Dm7 | C |We eventually pushed these chord changes more with this eventual pattern utilizing a diminished chord and the V chord to lead. See the “C” section above for the final structure which uses.
Cm7 |Fm7 |Ab Eb| Eb |Gb Db| Db | Fdim7 | Fdim7 |Fdim7 E7|E7 |

The final section of this piece is driven by this rhythmic statement played by the cello and 2nd violin . The 1st violin and viola trade off melody statements over the top of this rhythm.

The ending contains a soaring violin part which is answered by a “french horn” like statement in the viola which drives this piece to a final conclusion